Uncle Muddy has decided he wants to participate in my storytelling, so he has some stuff he wants to share. Of course, Uncle Ray is gonna type it up and stick it on the Internet, since Mamaw don’t let anybody have no World Wide nothing in her house. Take it away Uncle Muddy.

Uncle Mudwink:

Well y’all, Pete has done finagled me into telling y’all something online today, and I had a notion just to sit here and complain a little about life. We have plenty to eat around here; plenty of stuff to drink and my occasional cigar. We have a nice warm place to live and good family and friends all around. All of our bills are paid and we have a little somethin’ left now and again to help others out around here.

But sometimes you get that feeling that something else is out there? Not nothing tangible you can even touch, but its a gnawing feeling, that grabs your guts and just won’t let go. Y’all know that feeling? Its like a man that stacks feed all day, but dreams of riding in the rodeo. Or the woman that sits in one of them big fancy high rise office buildings, working for another man all day, when all the while she dreams of seeing the world.

That is the kind of feeling that I am telling y’all about. Sometimes I get that feeling so bad, I get up on blocks and busted flat gone feeling it. Charlene -that’s my sister and them boys’ Mamaw – tells me I am thinking more highly of myself than I ought to. I didn’t bother to mention that if God didn’t want me thinking and dreaming, he wouldn’t have created this gray matter in my skull nohow. But you can’t tell that woman anything; once she gets it in her head how something oughta be, you can’t blow it out of there with dynamite.

So today I was thinking maybe as old as I am getting to be pushing 70, I might oughta do some of them things I was raring to do as a young man. I always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon, but even though I went all over the world and saw many foreign places, people and sights, I never made it out there to that Grand Canyon. I just want to get out there and yell down it, and hear it echo something back to me.

Another thing I wanted to do forever is fly with the Hurricane Hunters. Right into the big old eye of a bad storm, yessir. It would probably scare the living daylights out of me, but I have always wanted to do it. Wouldn’t mind taking a few flying lessons neither, just to say I did it. I always liked being up high in the mountains, but I just can’t take the cold air. But a few airplane flights at the controls might fix my hankering to do that.

Some folks call this a bucket list; but I ain’t never had a bucket that didn’t have water, feed, paint or food in it. And I lose the lists I make; but my main most bucket list item I have ever wanted to do is go to the most remote island in the world. It just has to be tropical, small population and have a few creature comforts. I wouldn’t mind staying on an island for a few months, and get it out of my system.

I kind of crave adventure believe it or not. I know we have them two kids to look after, me and Charlene and mother but I still can’t help but think there is just a little something else I need to be doing with my life, being such as it is. I never liked skiing, and I don’t hunt or fish much, except when Pete begs me to take him. I have never been bad to drink booze neither, although a fine six pack of a Sunday makes the week more tolerable.

Maybe I ought to visit Montana again. I spent a few years of my youth working on farms there, and perhaps I can pick up some of that exuberance I used to have, before the military slam took most of it. I was thinking too of how I like me a good waterfall; we have one or two around here but I want a real waterfall. I have been to Machine Falls in Tennessee, and that was a fine one but hard to hike down.

I am of the opinion if a person has a bona fide dream, they ought to chase it – hard fast and continuously. I will keep on dreaming my old man dreams, and maybe one of these days I will do the same, and visit that island for a spell. I ain’t hankering for the cold Montana weather, but the Grand Canyon just might be doable. If I can get motivated enough to drive out there and actually see it.